80 Artists To Watch In 2014

The Bands

Drowners are a New York punk-pop band named after a Suede single and fronted by a male model. Did that manage to pique your interest at all? If so make sure you check out their music below:

NoNoNo

Pop comes in many shapes and forms, and although Swedish imports NoNoNo look like an unlikely trio, they launched an assault on the UK charts with their intoxicating pop anthem “Pumpin’ Blood” back in 2013. Their songs come off as effortlessly catchy, which is a one-way ticket to chart success.

Circa Waves

Circa Waves are a four-piece garage-rock band from Liverpool who are reviving the sound of the early-Noughties indie scene. Despite only being eight months old, the band have already had Zane Lowe picking them as part of his Hottest Record in the World feature.

HAERTS

HAERTS are a five piece indie-pop group from Brooklyn, NY, who released their first EP last year. Nina Fabi‘s vocals are simply delicious, and their sound is already top notch, which is exactly what you would expect when their work is produced by Jean-Philip Grobler (of St. Lucia fame)

Embers

Embers bring to us cinematic and vast indie-rock from Manchester. The four piece have apparently been dazzling audiences with amazing live shows, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to catch them ourselves yet. We hope to hear more of their work as soon as possible.

Trampolene

Trampolene are probably one of the most mysterious bands on this list, as they are quite adverse to promoting themselves on the Internet. Thanks to signing themselves up with a management agency, there are bits and pieces starting to leak out gradually, but for the most part they are still quite a mystery. Imagine Kasabian with reignited passion…

CTZNSHP

CTZNSHP are a trio that hail from Montreal, Canada, who make frenetic, loud, and hazy, songs with catchy melodies. They’ve recently supported The National and Yuck, and are set to have a bright 2014.

Swiss Lips

We have been following Manchester five-piece Swiss Lips for quite a while now, but unfortunately they haven’t offered much in terms of music over the past year. We interviewed them back in 2013 where they revealed that a debut album was coming to accompany the plethora of exciting electropop demos that current reside on their soundcloud, so here’s hoping that materialises in the next 6 months.

Wolf Alice

In December, Wolf Alice were chosen as the most blogged about artist in the UK during 2013. Definitely not a bad omen for their future prospects. The four-piece alternative rock band from North London are set to release their debut album in 2014, and you can get a taste of the expected material below:

La Plage

We don’t know too much about La // Plage, a female-fronted four-piece hailing from Liège, Belgium. They first came to our attention via a fantastic reinterpretation of Phoenix’s “Trying To Be Cool“, but hooked us once and for all with their own release “Rendez Vous“.

The Preatures

Whilst The Preatures have probably been around longer than HAIM, they haven’t exactly achieved commercial success at the same rate. Hopefully this will change this year as they are set to make a bigger impact outside of their native Australia. Why did we mention HAIM? Take a listen below and you might see why…

Migos

US trio Migos hit the jackpot in 2013 when Drake hopped on the remix for their breakout trap hit “Versace”. “Y.R.N.” was probably one of the hottest mixtapes last summer, and they are set to follow it up with “Y.R.N. 2” which is expected to drop early 2014.

Vaults

Vaults have taken the softly, softly approach to releasing their music to the general public, even though their debut single “Cry No More” has notched up a massive half a million plays in just four months. Taking a leaf out of London Grammar‘s book, the band have already got Radio 1 onside, which we all know is a key policy these days.

If they can follow the LG model of building up a devoted fanbase through well paced, quality releases, they could easily be making high chart entries in 2014.

Lemaitre

The hottest Norwegian band out there at the moment is Lemaitre, who have already released 4 EPs and have over a million followers on Soundcloud. They have been teasing us with the idea of a fully fledged album for a while now, so we are praying they deliver us with one this year.